Business

Deka Biosciences announced Tuesday it is breaking ground on a 14,000-square-foot office and lab in Germantown that will house a research and development, process development and manufacturing facility to further develop its novel cytokine therapies. This will be the first facility to house a dual targeted cytokine development lab in the Washington/Maryland/Virginia region and the only company in the U.S. developing a therapeutic of its kind. The new headquarters will be located at 20380 Seneca Meadows Parkway. Deka anticipates the move to be completed in the first quarter of 2023. The facility acquisition, design and construction are in partnership with Minkoff Development, CBRE, and Facility Logix.

A Baltimore medical company that aims to make it easier to diagnose a deadly type of pneumonia raised $3.5 million in an oversubscribed seed round. Pearl Diagnostics, led by Johns Hopkins University Professor Kieren Marr, plans to use the funding to focus on manufacturing, in preparation for the commercial launch of its urine antigen test for fungal pneumonia.

An ongoing feud between some West Baltimore residents and the New York company behind the $800 million Center/West development has ended with a peace accord. Top city officials announced on Monday an agreement for the planned redevelopment in the Poppleton community, a neighborhood that sits in the shadow of the University of Maryland BioPark. Some residents there have decried plans by the city to demolish two rowhouses under eminent domain as part of the retail and residential project by La Cite Development LLC.

Gaithersburg’s Novavax Inc. is on the cusp of rolling out its Covid-19 vaccine to the public. But first, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel must review the biotech’s protein-based vaccine. That’s on the calendar for Tuesday, less than a week after the Food and Drug Administration authorized the product for emergency use in the U.S.

Baltimore biotechnology startup Delfi Diagnostics has raised $225 million as it embarks on a 15,000-person trial for its early cancer detection technology. The oversubscribed Series B round was the second mega-deal of the year in Greater Baltimore. DFJ Growth led the round, with participation from local Baltimore institutions such as T. Rowe Price Associates, Brown Advisory, PTX Capital and Rock Springs CapitalNational institutions such as Eli Lilly and Co., Point 72, Menlo Ventures and others also participated.

The pleasant hum of a sewing machine fills a busy workspace in Johnston Square, just off the corner of Greenmount Avenue and Preston Street. It’s an industrial sound that once reverberated all over this neighborhood when commercial sewing businesses thrived here and in other parts of the city. Jeremiah Jones and his wife, Cecilia Grimm, are on a mission to restore the sewing trade that is part of Baltimore’s working heritage. They founded SewLab USA, a teaching workshop for the fiber arts. They also manufacture specialty products.

Albert Elliott has been fueling up his Kia Soul in increments of $15, $20 and $25 to make the 60-mile commute from Fayetteville, N.C., to an Amazon warehouse in Raleigh, where he makes $15.75 an hour. Lately, he doesn’t have enough cash to fill his tank the entire way. In June, gas prices had gotten so steep that Elliot took on a second job as a janitor at a community college, working an extra two days a week for $10 an hour. “Gas is just through the roof. Unless it’s payday, I put in all the money I have at the time, sometimes borrowing money from family and friends,” Elliott said.

Hourly workers must be paid for the time they spend waiting and being shuttled between a remote parking lot and the worksite if such transportation is required by their employer, Maryland’s top court unanimously ruled Wednesday. Compensation is owed under Maryland wage laws because the parking lot and shuttle bus essentially serve as the employers’ mandatory labor staging area, the Court of Appeals held in its 7-0 decision involving workers who helped build the MGM National Harbor resort and casino in Oxon Hill between 2015 and 2016.